7/18/2011

Cartel (1990)

Chuck Taylor (O’Keeffe) is a plane courier (not inventor of Converse sneakers), flying solo and delivering packages. One day, he unwittingly carries a shipment of cocaine across the Mexico border into California.
Even though he’s innocent, he gets sent behind bars. The evil drug lord
behind the bust is one Tony “The King” King (Stroud). He is also
captured and sent to the big house, and then a prison movie scenario
begins. King escapes, and Taylor follows. After King sends some goons,
led by Rivera (Cummins) to terrorize Taylor’s family, he goes on a
rampage of revenge to kill all the baddies involved.

Getting off
to quite a rockin’ start, we see Miles O’Keeffe cruisin’ in his plane,
wearing his aviator shades while the very Foreigner-like theme song,
“Flying Blind” by Kenwood Hall pumps on the soundtrack. Because this is from the
makers of the classic Action U.S.A. (1989),
there are plenty of back-to-back action scenes and impressive stunts.
It then goes to a prison scenario, with an underused William Smith, who
really barks his few lines. There’s also a prisoner who looks exactly
like Mr. Bean.

What’s great about Miles O’Keeffe is his
unapologetic emotionlessness. He proudly can stand in the hall of wooden
actors alongside Michael Pare and Don “The Dragon” Wilson, but with
O’Keeffe it just seems like he doesn’t try to hide his expressionless
acting in any way. And he says as little as possible. So a lot of the
fun of Cartel, and other Miles outings, is his acting style.

Interestingly,
one of the Martial Arts choreographers on the film was Isaac
Florentine, later to be a well-known DTV director in his own right. You
can see the roots of how he learned his craft by watching Cartel.

It
is a tad on the long side, and even though it is filled with action
and stunts, it’s not quite as good as Action USA, but very few things
are, so don’t take that as an insult. It still has a similar vibe, and
Cartel is well worth checking out.